Free Republic

For several years, the Senate Education and Health committee has been a killing ground for pro-life and pro-family legislation. Notorious for disrespecting pro-family advocates testifying before the committee and leading the killing of bills, Chairman Russ Potts (R-27, Winchester) has become the poster child for some Senate Republican's anti-family agenda. Now, you can have a say in what happens with that committee! Next week, the Senate leadership will have to make several decisions regarding seats on the Ed and Health committee, including that of Chairman Potts. Many pro-family Senators are demanding that Potts be removed from the committee after having...

The thought of Maggie, his beloved golden retriever, spending her days alone at home is almost more than H. Russell Potts can bear. “Maggie is not doing well with this,” he said, wiping a tear from behind his glasses. “She’s a very unhappy camper.” But these are heady times in Virginia politics, and if Potts is asking Virginia voters to sacrifice, then so must Maggie. The state senator from Winchester is on a quest to become the first i ndependent elected as Virginia governor. He knows it’s a long shot. And his message doesn’t ease the odds. Potts wants to...

Governor, VA 8/10/2005 Kilgore (R) - 48% Kaine (D) - 43% Potts (I) - 3% Other/Undecided - 7% Data Collected 8/6/05 - 8/8/05 State of Virginia 568 Likely Voters Margin of Error - 4.2%

From the article: >>>Virginia’s gubernatorial race appears to be a squeaker, with Democrat Tim Kaine holding a slight edge over Republican Jerry Kilgore, according to a Mason-Dixon poll. With the election less than four months away, the poll found Kaine with 38 percent of likely voters and Kilgore with 37 percent. Last September Kaine, the lieutenant governor, trailed Kilgore, a Scott County native and former attorney general, by 5 percentage points. "It does confirm a couple of things we’ve been seeing and we’ve been saying: The more people get to know Tim Kaine and his role in budget reform and...

Conservative Republicans in the Virginia Senate yesterday failed to strip breakaway Republican H. Russell Potts Jr. of his committee assignments as punishment for his independent bid for governor. Potts, a curmudgeonly Winchester sports promoter elected in 1991, survived on a procedural ruling by the GOP-controlled Senate's president, Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the likely Democratic nominee for governor.

Kilgore: Potts’s Candidacy Won’t Distract GOP Voters Local Support Is Clear During Stop at Airport By Michael N. Graff The Winchester Star -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore stood in Winchester Regional Airport’s lobby on Thursday afternoon — essentially on state Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr.’s front porch — and listened as Winchester-area Republicans whooped and hollered in support of his gubernatorial candidacy. There was a time many in the crowd would have done the same for Potts. But after Potts strayed from the party ranks last month and announced that he would oppose Kilgore as an independent candidate...

When Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. announced last month that he would run for governor of Virginia as an "independent Republican," challenging the party's nominee for the job, he said he remained as much a part of the Republican family as his father before him. This week, a Republican committee chaired decades ago by Potts's father formally disowned him. In a unanimous vote Monday evening, the Winchester City Republican Committee declared that it no longer recognizes Potts as a member and called on him to resign his Senate seat. Across the state, the Republican Party apparatus is working to formally...

The conspiracy theorists have been having a field day with the report in the Feb. 25 edition of The Hartford Courant that offered up details into how Virginia Democratic Gov. Mark Warner apparently helped to introduce independent gubernatorial candidate Russ Potts to former independent Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker and indirectly to senior campaign consultant Thomas D'Amore. Will the news that Potts and Warner have both refuted the Courant report have the expected cooling effect on the punditry? "I initiated the call to Gov. Weicker. That's how it happened," Potts told The Augusta Free Press on Thursday. "The governor's recollection of...

While many area politicos had their eyes and ears pinned on Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. Friday, two political hopefuls announced interest in seeking his 27th District Senate seat. Jill Holtzman Vogel of Warrenton and Phillip S. Griffin II of Winchester announced the creation of exploratory committees to examine a run for the state Senate seat that Potts would vacate if elected governor. Potts’s Senate term expires in 2007. But if the Virginia Republican Party has its way, a race to fill his seat could come much sooner. After Potts announced his run for governor as a “independent Republican,” Virginia...

State Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., a Republican who has tossed a monkey wrench into state politics by running as an independent for governor this fall, has been asked to resign from the Senate’s GOP caucus. Potts, 65, formally announced his candidacy on Friday. --SNIP-- Shortly after his news conference, Potts was evicted from a specially called meeting of the Senate’s GOP caucus. His long time colleagues emerged from the closed-door session two hours later with a formal request that Potts resign from the caucus, relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Education and Health Committee and all of his other...

RICHMOND, Feb. 25 -- Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester) announced Friday that he is running for Virginia governor as an "independent Republican" and will mount a populist, pro-investment campaign against the two major party candidates. Potts, a senator for 14 years, said that he remains faithful to the principles of his party but that the GOP's rightward drift has put it out of line with the thinking of most Virginians. "I believe that Virginia is a moderate, middle-of-the-road state," said Potts, 65. "That's where I am." He vowed to turn back one of the most popular political promises in...

A contrarian Republican legislator angry over the rightward shift of his party appears poised to bolt the GOP to run for governor as an independent. Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. of Winchester, a sports promoter known for prickly populism, is expected to disclose his intentions at a news conference tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the Old Senate Chamber of the state Capitol.

A Republican state senator considering an independent run for governor has hired a top adviser to the ex-Republican who became Connecticut's independent governor in 1990. Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., R-Winchester, has signed Thomas J. D'Amore Jr., one-time chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party and former chief of staff to then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. In retaining D'Amore, Potts now widely viewed as a moderate -- edges closer to potentially breaking with his party, which he has criticized for what he described yesterday as its "flat-Earth policy."

Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. is considering jumping into the Virginia gubernatorial race, which already has at least three candidates. -SNIP- Mr. Potts, who is considered a moderate in the party because he voted for last year's tax increases, would run as either a Republican in a June primary against two known candidates or as an independent in November.

I got an invite for the "Republican Majority for Choice Big Tent Celebration" during the RNC Convention in NYC. There were the usual suspects...Gov Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Ric Lazio, Christine Todd Whitman, Senators Chaffee, Collins, Snow, Collins, Stevens.... But then I saw Senator John Warner and VA Senator Russell Potts listed as Honorees. Very sad to see VA Republicans sell out to the murder of abortions......